You may be able to find it at an Asian market or grocery store in your area, but FSM only knows why you'd want to. It smells like your dirty uncle's stinky socks after a hard day of walking and the taste isn't much better. ( I may be biased though.)

And so well after a month of searching in my area, I can't find one near chinatown. Go figure...

Online nattou sources aren't really great either. All websites that carry nattou I've seen they have shipping of 10 USD or more. The last one I checked out had a shipping price of a whopping 26 dollars!!

I had some recently while visiting my cousin out of town... admittedly it's one of the bigger towns in the state, but I would think that a good Asian market in a bigger city might have it.

I don't think I'd be able to buy it here in town... but it's only about a 40 minute drive from here to the market he bought everything at for our Japanese dinner. (I still have the main makings for "real" miso soup that I picked up on that trip)

I suppose I should clarify that this Asian store we went to had a specifically Japanese aisle, etc. They carried a range of foods from different Asian markets... like Korean, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc (if I remember correctly).

The reason I don't think I'd be able to find it here locally, is that while we do have some "Asian" food stores, they're generally Chinese or Vietnamese etc... but I don't think there are any specifically Japanese, or that even necessarily carry Japanese specific goods.

When a friend of mine in Japan was back visiting here, he and his wife (who is Japanese) mentioned that there is a Japanese woman here in town who is part of the sister cities program or something to that effect. They told me I should get in touch with her. So I might try doing that... since I think that would not only be a lot of fun, but probably a great way to learn more about what Japanese oriented restaurants, markets, etc there might be in this area.

I really wonder if there's a way to try it here. I have not been able to find one. Online prices are okay, but shipping would only be worth it if I were ordering it in bulk. My stepmom works at verizon, the closest Asian stores are in chinatown in boston. Unfortunately I can't seem to find anyone there who would sell it, it is chinatown after all, not japantown.

And I'm afraid if I try it in a restaurant I'll embarrass myself and the cooks there. I don't want that.... Oh I'm at a loss of what to do!